Do I NEED a new GPU?

[Ebezz]

I am seriously considering purchasing a new 22" monitor to use in tandem with my 17" Sony SDM-HX73. I have read several places to make sure that the GPU/CPU can handle the additional stress. I use my computer for my Engineering Bus. mostly word processing, excel, surfing and lots of 2D Cadd. I also occasionally play WOW on this computer. My vitals are:

CPU 754 2400mhz
MB Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro
GPU Radeon 9800 Pro (256 MB) R350
HDD (2) WD 160 Sata Raid 1
RAM (2) 512 MB No name ddr

Please let me know if I'll have enough juice to power both monitors. Cheers!!

 

[lifeblood]

I had a 9600 Pro and it worked fine with two 17" CRT monitors. If you run any games that are 3-D (most are nowadays) or watch movies it would only show up on the main screen, but the other screen would still operate in 2-D mode.

 

[incompleteunit]

You should be fine - the 9800 is capable of doing that, and your 256Mb of VRAM being split into 128/128 still leaves plenty of headroom for the tasks you mention. Powering two monitors is not a huge task - it's been done for ages on computers a lot less capable than yours. If you're running WoW it will only be on one of them anyway.

 

[ForumMaster]

should be fine. don't expect to use play games on both monitors, but playing on one should be no problem whatsoever.

 

[Ebezz]

Thanks Guys!!

Would you recommend Flashing the card's bios to make it a 9800 xt. I've been holding off doing that since I had enough video power for my uses without. From the guides I have the card with the r360 core and already upgraded the cooler. I would have to reinstall a floppy drive, but not too much headache.

Thanks again for the replys. I'm looking to spring for the Hanns-G 223DPB. Seems like a good monitor for the price, I do like the LG 226WTX, but its a $100 more. There's some talk that LG has updated the firmware for the "Q" model to get rid of the ghosting which also looks like it may be a good deal also.